THE BURKE/SOLIS MESS: IMPLICATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

This headline in the Jan. 29 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times was a genuine bombshell, revealing that the powerful speaker of the Illinois House was unwittingly recorded by Ald. Daniel Solis as part of his apparent two-year-long stint as a mole wearing a wire for federal law enforcement—another bit of news that landed on Illinois' political landscape with similarly earthshaking force just days earlier.

Citing a federal court affidavit, the Sun-Times reported Madigan was recorded trying to get business for his private tax law firm from a real estate developer brought to him by Solis, who was weighing the developer's request to build a hotel in Chinatown. Madigan's law firm's legal fees were discussed during the meeting—and the Southwest Side Democrat made it clear he wanted more than a short-term deal with the developer.

Though the disclosures were unsettling for a political class accustomed to thinking of Madigan's power as something like an inevitability, the conventional wisdom shifted in the days after the Sun-Times scoop. The general line seemed to be that, if what was reported is all the feds have on Madigan, then he, unlike fellow tax-lawyer-cum-lawmaker Edward Burke, is in the clear.

The Madigan camp furthermore denies any wrongdoing and says that, to their knowledge, neither the speaker nor his law firm is under investigation. Indeed, he has not been charged with a crime.

Fair enough.

And yet …

In the wake of the news that ex-Finance Committee Chairman Burke had been charged with attempted extortion for allegedly trying to land a fast-food company as a client for his tax law firm, Crain's on Jan. 4 opined that "Madigan's day job, like Burke's, presents such a clear conflict of interest to his role as a public servant that it defies logic. In fact, it is well past time for it to be illegal to do what Burke and Madigan have done for decades—handling property tax appeals for businesses standing to benefit from or be harmed by government actions."

That assertion prompted this response from Madigan's longtime spokesman Steve Brown: "During his time in public service Speaker Madigan has used a personal code of conduct that expressly prevents his public action to benefit himself, his law firm or clients of his law firm. . . .He routinely recuses himself from any action on legislation involving property taxes."

Fair enough.

And yet …

It's true Madigan's role as speaker afforded the arm's length distance between his role as a state official and the Chinatown hotel developer whose request was coming before City Hall. Even so, the conversation caught on the Solis tape serves as a glaring example of why businesses have so little faith in government, doubts that aren't assuaged by precious personal codes of conduct.

Priority No. 1 for both the city and state is solving their fiscal problems—solutions that include setting rates for both property and income taxes. No matter how the Burke case and any related cases ultimately get resolved, this much is clear: Lawmakers must be required to pick their day job. If you want to be a tax lawyer, you shouldn't have a hand, direct or indirect, in setting tax law. While this is at odds with the idea of a citizen legislature, the decades Burke and Madigan have spent in office illustrate how quaint that notion is.

New Gov. J.B. Pritzker should take the lead and push at a minimum for barring lawmakers and other public officials from representing clients before state and local tax-collecting bodies. If you want to be a lawyer while acting as a lawmaker, you'll have to handle lawsuits or represent people before federal agencies. Sorry, but that's the way it ought to be from here on out. Illinois pols are proving—in increasingly vivid detail—that their personal codes of conduct aren't sturdy enough to assure Illinoisans that the business of government is being done for their benefit, not the pols'.